News

Actions

Crime victim advocate carjacked, dragged by teens in school uniforms

Posted at 3:27 PM, Aug 27, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-27 15:27:24-04

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee crime victim advocate now knows what it feels like to be a victim of a crime.

Gwendolyn Turner said she was carjacked and dragged about 100 yards by two teens outside her house on Vollintine Avenue Friday morning.

“They had backpacks and khakis like a school kid,” Turner told WREG.

Turner said she was retrieving a briefcase from her trunk around 8 a.m. when the teens jumped into the front of her red Hyundai Elantra.

When Turner confronted the driver, she said she was taken aback by the way he spoke to her.

“The fact that he called me ‘m’am,’ ‘miss,’ you know, that was kind of strange to me,” she said.

Related: Three people arrested in connection with Norfolk shooting and carjacking

But the suspects weren’t well-mannered enough to release Turner’s car. She grabbed onto a car door and onto one of the teens, and they began driving off.

One of Turner’s legs is covered in road rash, and the pavement tore holes in her boots.

“My shoes were burning the ground,” she said.

“He began to drive erratically and trying to throw me off the car and I’m like, ‘No!’”

Turner carefully chose a moment to fling herself from the moving car to avoid being run over, then said the teens began throwing out some of her personal items.

“For it to be children, I just wanted to snatch him out of the car and whip him like I was his mama,” she said.

“It’s just a terrible thing that the mindset of our youth has gone to violence and violent crimes.”